i find it pretty fascinating how astrology has become so commonplace and normalized in many communities and friend groups, but there remains very little discourse around what astrology might actually be and the implications of using it, or even believing in it.
i’ve seen the joy and pleasure of people guessing each other’s sign, i’ve watched folks bonding over a shared Moon placement or flirtatiously disclosing their “big three” with a glint their eyes. i’ve also seen people genuinely hurt by being reduced to an astrological stereotype (oh, you materialistic Taurus!) or ostracized for having a gnarly Mars (you’re so competitive!). i’ve sympathetically watched on as non-astrology-fans sigh from exhaustion or frustration when they’re asked (once again) to present their astrological credentials at a social gathering. and possibly the most upsetting, i’ve witnessed how someone will agonize over their own placements or transits, demonizing their birth chart and anxiously cursing themselves into a hopeless acceptance of their star-doomed existence. (i tend to attract a lot of Saturn-heavy folks into my life). we all do this to a certain degree, but there’s no denying that astrology can harm one’s self-perception, as much as it can bring support.
but aside from astrology’s current renaissance and the way in which it can add another layer of complexity to any given social situation, i remain very interested in what astrology is and what means to, well, believe in astrology. i think spending time with the question of what astrology is, or might be, brings up the question of what astrology can (or cannot) do, which – hopefully – might lead to more responsible and meaningful relationships with astrology .
when i consider any topic, i always look at the etymology. i feel like etymology is the linguistic equivalent to meeting someone’s parents. and i’d like to consciously digress here and take this moment to thank etymonline.com for enabling a lot of intimacy between my brain and certain concepts. and for always being there for me, whenever i’m thinking about basically anything, and introducing me to the underside of a word.
anyway. in the English language, and many other Latin-based languages, “astrology” comes from the Greek, astrologia – “astro” for “star” coming from the Proto-Indo-European root *ster. and “logos” for “telling of” or “treating of”. etymonline also tells us that: ‘-logy’ is a word-forming element meaning “a speaking, discourse, treatise, doctrine, theory, science.”
in a really wonderful interview on The Astrology Podcast, Chris Brennan interviews the astrologer and philosopher Dr. José Manuel Redondo about ancient Greek philosophy and its integration with astrology, focusing specifically on the 5th Century philosopher and astrologer-astronomer, Proclus. Redondo talks about how in the ancient Greek world, philosophy and astrology were deeply entangled. the interview is packed with fascinating information, histories and digressions, but what i want to focus on here is the way Redondo talks about this term “logos”:
“Well, logos is a very complex Greek term […] which can refer to ‘reason’, to ‘language’, to ‘measure’, to ‘a foundation’, to ‘knowledge’; I mean, it has many ‘registers’. And of course astro refers to ‘the stars’ in Greek. But the first Greek philosophers talk about a logos—which can also be translated as ‘law’—that structures the whole of reality, that gives it order, shape, meaning and this logos, from the very beginning, is usually related to the stars in some way or another.”
to my pagan-leaning and rather literal mind, if “logos” is a kind of law that structures reality, then it makes perfect sense that the planets, the stars, the sky, the galaxy, the cosmos, literally the space in which we are – space itself – is both materially and immaterially, literally and figuratively, the landscape in which “order, shape, meaning” must emerge. because space is both where we are and what we’re in. where else could our sense of orientation and meaning come from?
a little later on, Redondo continues:
“[…] in a way astrology—at least from the philosophical point of view—is philosophy applied; it’s practical philosophy. Metaphysical concepts put into action, so to speak, as well as an applied theology.”
i find the idea that astrology is applied philosophy and even applied theology very intriguing, and one that i certainly want to investigate further into. but right now, let’s look even further beneath the word “logos”. let’s get back to PIE – the Proto-Indo-European root word of “logos” – is *leg which means to collect or gather with “derivatives meaning ‘to speak’…”, according to our beloved etymonline.com.
the fact that it is the action of gathering or collecting that sits far beneath “logos” – of law, science and a logic that structures reality – also makes a kind of magical sense to me. my mind immediately turns to Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” and the (r)evolutionary technology of bags or containers for gathered materials. i also hear an echo of an interview i once listened to with Donna Haraway who talks about “working by addition”.
but mostly, this *leg root word of collecting/gathering, makes me think of a fundamental concept and practice in astrology – that of correlation, which works as a kind of organizing principle of energetic qualities. you’ll often find astrologers defining and explaining a given transit or aspect with a collection of connected concepts, words standing in for other words. for example:
venus is love is harmony is flowers is eros is pleasure is delight is balance is rest.
mars is conflict is separation is sword is chaos is challenge is resistance is the exertion of energy.
it’s a kind of poetic synonymizing that both concretizes and expands a given concept. this provides (what i feel) to be both a frame and a sense of agency within that frame, it gives a riverbed in which something can flow of its own accord. in someone’s birth-chart, you can both discover and explore a gathered collection of qualities or terms, which can narrate or describe a certain transit or aspect. but how one chooses to work (or play) with the collection of terms, is a creative task that requires both imagination, participation and probably entire philosophical and ethical framework, because within description lies power.
which brings me to something else that is nestled into the action of collecting or gathering: the implicit factor of relationship and mutation. there is always a relationship between correlated words and concepts, but i think that something happens between one word and another, where the in-between space enables a mutation. this mutation is probably very connected to the situation in which two or more given concepts are connecting. but within this relationship and mutation, somewhere in the movement from one quality to the next, i suspect we find something that strongly looks like agency. and perhaps also a potential invitation to step into the space between the concepts, words, ideas and participate in their mutation, becoming curious and involved in how their relationship might ever so slightly shift a certain narrative that is unfolding.
i don’t know if this is making sense, i’ve tried my best and it’s not unlikely that i’ve failed. but i have hunches. and one of those hunches include a kind of malleable conviction that somewhere between the logos and the stars, there is a vital need for a robust, healthy and responsive philosophy (or even theology) around astrology. for there is so much responsibility (and wisdom) required to meaningfully work with astrology in a way that is useful and generative. and ultimately, contrary to what many might believe, i do think that astrology connects us to our own agency in terms of how we might react to (or perhaps preferably – interact with) a gathered bundle of meanings and situations that might be set out before us by a potentially conscious cosmic environment.
anyway. i’m quite sure i haven’t answered the question of what astrology is. and i’m not even fully sure i’m interested in the answer. but i think the question is important. at some point, i think astrology might eventually fade from fashion. but until then, i do think that while it remains a topic that is thrown around the dinner table and drunkenly emerging outside the club, it’s worth considering what it might mean that a part of you resonates with a gathered bundle of words, qualities and concepts that have been mysteriously spat out at us (or through us?) from that expanding, mysterious and possibly curious firmament.